


Imagine

by Woodentrain



Series: Enough [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23085352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woodentrain/pseuds/Woodentrain
Summary: In which Elio and Oliver- both married- have been meeting, secretly, over the course of many years.A little one shot in the same universe asEnough.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Series: Enough [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659169
Comments: 58
Kudos: 158





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (You don't need to have read Enough (the description above pretty much sums up all you need to know) but it's only 1500 words so why wouldn't you?)

I often wonder, idly, which one of us it will be. Who will break first. 

Because we both know the truth, he and I. That this, this thing we do, is not enough. It’s only a matter of time before one of us can bear it no longer and finally decides that it’s time to give up on it. This is no way to live. Definitely no way to love. 

In my imagination, though, when I see how it might actually happen, there's no doubt. It's always me. In every scenario it's me who gives in. Some would say it's a sign of strength, being able to stand up and say  _ no more.  _ But I disagree. It's the weakness of not being able to stand the hurt any more.

In my imagination it's me.

Obviously I've considered that it might happen in bed. Of course I have. Before, or after. Before would be more difficult, perhaps. Those moments of desperation when we're finally reunited after weeks, months, a year or more, and the rest of the world disappears. With his hands on me and mine on him there's not an option of  _ no _ , there's no possibility of ending it. Besides, who could turn down the chance of here, now, just once more? 

After, then. But no, wouldn't that be even more difficult? Lying beside him knowing that I had loved him for the last time, lying with the evidence of it on the sheets and our bodies? Love for him everywhere, in the air and in my blood. 

Oliver at his most tender. It's the only time he lets himself, and he makes up for lost time now. 

_ Are you like this with the others, I think? _

There are others. Not his wife, although also her, I suppose. 

Other men. 

_ Only you,  _ he says, as though I'd said it out loud.  _ Of course, only you. It was only ever you like this, for me, Elio. I promise, I promise, I promise. _

I imagine him with the other, faceless men. Job done, wriggling into pants, the closing of a door. 

I don't begrudge him these others. I can't and I don't and I wouldn't expect him not to indulge. He, unlike me, needs something that he simply cannot get from a relationship with a woman, and he needs it more often than I can provide. Which is understandable. So. It's fine.

But I digress. Where were we? Of course. Love. He and I, between the sheets of the bed. It's just  _ the bed,  _ an anonymous bed in an anonymous room, it can never be his bed or my bed or our bed, not ever again. Oliver here, at his most tender. Caresses and whispers of sweetness. His own name falls easy and careless from his lips and into my ears. Softness and warm skin. He laughs- quietly, so quietly, and touches my nose with his own. He breathes into my hair and plays with it, twirls a curl around his finger, combs through it. He sighs.

We kiss, and I can feel it when he smiles. He has a smile which only comes out now. The one I love the best. Mine. Me. 

This is the time when it feels like enough. Feels like everything. Who could ask for more than everything?

It's the only time he says  _ I love you _ .

It's the only time I say it back.

So not then, not after. The timing just wouldn't work, happy, flooded with post coital bliss, paralysed by the mechanism nature created with the very intention of cementing the bond between partners. Thwarted by the unchangable, biological make up of our bodies. An impossible ending.

If not in bed, then when? I've thought about saying it on the phone. A coward's way out, but effective. I wouldn't have to look at his face. I wouldn't have to find the power to escape his gaze, which always seems so innocent and trusting to me. It would be so much easier if I didn't have to look at him, didn't have to see him look back with his blue, blue eyes.

It's what he did to me, once, long ago. I think that he considered it a kindness, that ending. How wrong he was. It wasn't kind, and it wasn't the end. Not for long. Not  _ the _ end, but still an ending of sorts. An ending to being honest and open about what we were to each other. The beginning- although we didn't know it at the time- of this secret, shameful thing we do in the dark. 

I'm not ashamed, even though I think I should be.

What about a letter? Letters never go out of fashion.

Or an email would make more sense, nowadays, but there's a certain poetry to a letter, which he would doubtless appreciate.

I could tell him in an  _ actual poem _ . It's not my style, but still. I am almost ridiculous enough.

Almost.

Back to a letter. It would be a beautiful letter. A love letter, or rather an end-of-love letter. Not an end to the love, because no letter can make that end. But an end to letting that love live. Sealed with a kiss, the last kiss. Cruelest. But where to start with such a letter? And where to finish? I've sat down with paper and pen and started a hundred times or more. Blankness, every time. I imagine scattering the pages to the wind, hoping one would reach him, hoping he would understand what it meant. 

Ending it in public would be prudent. Nobody can cry, that way. Would he? Or would I? No. Or yes. Impossible to say. Probably not. It's important to escape with your dignity intact, and crying in a bar or a cafe or the street is not that. 

Or I could do nothing. Doing nothing is always easy. Death by inertia. Ignore his calls, his letters. Stop going to events where I might run into him. Become a recluse. Move to the mountains, a monastery, the moon. Live in quiet contemplation about all that I have lost.

The thing I never really had. 

_ Does he make you happy?  _ Only my father would dare to ask such a thing. I haven't even dared to ask it of myself. 

Of course my father knows about our sordid little affair.  _ Why do you call it that? I know you don't believe that's all it is.  _ I just shrug.

Does he make me happy? What a question! Everyone knows that the answer should be  _ no.  _ How can this possibly make me happy? How could this make anyone happy? Living for the stolen moments between us. Never enough.

"Yes. But I don't know if that fleeting happiness is worth all the time in between." My happiness with him comes in short, unpredictable flashes amid the storm of the rest of my life- lightning-bright and instantly gone, blink and you've missed it. Gone so fast, but intense enough to light my whole world for one bright, bright moment. I close my eyes when it's gone and I can still see the light, jagged and burning white behind my eyelids. Dazzled.

My father doesn't have an answer for that, so he asks another question.

_ But Elio, are you happy? Does your life make you happy? _

I say nothing.

*

So many ways it could happen. Ways in which I could initiate the beginning of the end. 

My imagination doesn't tell me what happens next. It never goes that far. What does he say?

I have no idea. 

*

We both know that something has to give. One of us has to say, eventually, that enough is enough.

We can never be enough. Always once more, please, once more.

But when it happens it's not what I expect. We're sitting, he and I, in a quiet cafe, sheltering from a summer storm. I'm thinking ahead- to when the rain will clear and we can go back to our hotel, back to bed. I'm not paying enough attention to know that the conversation, the one I've imagined for so long and in so many ways, has already started, and it's not me starting it, it's him. 

It's Oliver saying,  _ I can't do this any more. We can't keep doing this _ .

So this is it. Should I be relieved? After all my worrying and wondering, the worst has finally happened. 

In a public place, of course. That's only sensible. I fear I might be about to cry, to make a scene.

I can't breathe. I'm not sure I will ever breathe again. 

But he’s not done. There's more, and it's not what I expect.

_ What would you say if I asked you to leave your wife for me? _

Oh.

My world view shifts. I feel pieces fall into place, into new places, pieces I didn't know existed falling into places I didn't know existed. 

I have imagined many things , but I have not dared to imagine that he would ask such a question. After all this time.

Outside the clouds have parted. A beam of sunlight shines, suddenly, through the window, illuminating his smile.


	2. Speechless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What would I say if he asked me to leave my wife for him?   
> I don’t say anything. He has, quite literally, rendered me speechless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second chapter I didn't meant to write! But write more of this, they said (you lovely, lovely commenters. This is for you).  
> And... okay, yes, I feel like doing a bit more, and here it is- but bear in mind this isn't really a story. There's no beginning, middle and end, no narrative arc. It's just bits and pieces, which I write on my phone while on public transport, and that's all it's ever likely to be. That said, it's fun at the moment to write quick short bursts, so there may be more but it may not continue from this point. I don't know. Subscribe to the series if you're interested in more!  
> (And the epilogue for These Parallel Lives is still underway- it's just difficult because there is a lot of it.)

What would I say if he asked me to leave my wife for him? 

I don’t say anything. He has, quite literally, rendered me speechless.

He’s still smiling. Squinting a little in the glare from the sun. He already knows the answer, but I’m a step behind- I'm still not sure I dare believe the question.

I realise I’ve been biting my lip. With nerves, or just in thought. _Say something._ “Is this… hypothetical? As in, _hypothetically, would you leave your wife for me?_ Or is it an actual question? As in-" I take a deep breath, afraid to voice it. What if- what if he laughs at me? _Oh, Elio, of course it's hypothetical. I just wanted to see how far you'd go for me._ But no. That's my own insecurity talking. I know Oliver, and he is the least cruel person imaginable.

 _Come on, Elio. Just say it._ "An actual question as in, you mean, _will I_ leave my wife for you _?"_

“As in _will you_.”

I try to buy myself some time. “That’s a big question. What would _you_ say if I asked you to leave _your_ wife for _me?_ ”

Olvier shrugs, as if this is not a big question to him. As though this is the smallest question in the world. “I’d tell you that I already did. Two months ago. We’re not divorced yet, but… yeah. We’re working our way through it.”

“You-”

He nods. “I mean, I can’t say I left her _for you_ . Not as such. That would have been presumptuous, and it might make you feel obliged to… something. I mean, you can’t do something for someone unless they've already agreed that they want- anyway. Not _for you_. But sort of. I suppose I’m trying to say that I didn’t leave her for you, but I left her in the hope that you might… in the hope of you.”

“Oh.”

_Marzia and I, on the tiny balcony of her tiny Parisian apartment. My oldest friend. Drinking and watching the sun go down._

_“What I don't know about married men isn't worth knowing." True. They are Marzia's speciality. "And Oliver-” she slams her glass down onto the table and points at me aggressively. I pour her another, upending the second wine bottle to get the last drops. “Oliver… let me tell you, he is not a man who will ever leave his wife.”_

_“I know that.”_

_“Do you?” She lights another cigarette._

_“Yes, Marzia, I do. Of course I do. He has never offered to, I have never asked him to, I_ would _never ask him to.”_

_“So why do you keep seeing him?”_

_“Why do you keep smoking those? It’s the same thing. I know it’s a bad idea, but I can’t stop going back for more.”_

_She laughs. “No sex is that good. It’s not the same thing. Not at all. And besides- at least I’ve tried to give them up.”_

_“At least what I do isn’t going to kill me.”_

_“Yes, it is. It’s killing you slowly, just in a different way to this.” She waves the cigarette airily in my direction. “Can’t you see that?”_

_“No, it’s not, Marzia. It’s fine. I’m fine.”_

_“You deserve better than him. He got married less than a year after he was with you. He broke your heart into tiny pieces. And now he’s been messing you around for years. Cheating on his wife, too. And he’s dragging you down with him. Claire deserves better than you.”_

_“I know. You don’t think I feel terrible for doing this to her?”_ This was in the early years of our marriage. Five- no, more like ten years ago now. Before my emotional distance drove her to cheat on me, at least.

_“If you feel so terrible, why don’t you just break it off with him?”_

_“It’s complicated.”_

_"That's what they all say. Cheaters and liars. Making excuses. You're an asshole, Elio Perlman. Always have been."_

_Clearly Marzia's latest, presumably married, boyfriend has done something to upset her. I should try not to take it too personally- she’s angry at men in general, not with me in particular. Doesn't mean that what she says doesn't bother me._

_“Don't be like that, Marzia. I can't stand it if you hate me. I know, alright? I know. Making me feel bad about it won't change anything. I already hate myself enough. You wouldn't say these things if you were sober, so you shouldn't say them drunk."_

_"That's because I love you too much when I'm sober. When I'm drunk, I see through you to the foolish boy you really are."_

_“What about me, then? Since you're the expert in married men."_

_"You're…” she shakes her head slowly. “You're just you, Elio. If you were a stranger, I wouldn't sleep with you. You're too sad. You're always searching for something that will finally make you happy, and however hard you look, it’s always just out of reach. I don't mind men who make empty promises, men who want things I don't want to give, men who are tired of their wives and their kids and their jobs and their… their lives. But I couldn't bear the sadness in you."_

_“I'm not sad.”_

_“Oh, Elio. I know you can’t see it. Your naïveté is what makes you so charming. Never change, mon amour."_

Oliver is waiting for me to say something. He's visibly, horribly nervous. His hands are shaking, and he doesn't seem to know what to do with them. He sits on them for a moment, then holds his coffee cup between them before placing them flat on the table. I want to take them in mine and kiss them.

"The last time I was this nervous, I was about to kiss a boy, on the grass, in the sun. I didn’t know quite what to do, what to say. What I wanted, or whether I dared to take it." He smiles half a smile before looking away as though he daren't hold my gaze. His honesty is disarming. So out of character for him to make himself so vulnerable, voluntarily. My chest aches for all of his insecurities.

"What happened then? With her?" It’s not an answer to his question, but I need to keep him talking.

"I told her that it, our marriage… wasn't working for me. And she said that surely we could try, we could try to work things out, that she still- Elio, I hate this. I hate it so much. I hate the way I hurt her. She- she said she still loved me, and that we should try to make things work, for the kids, for…"

He pauses. Breathes. His gaze is far away. I reach across the table and touch a fingertip to his.

"So I told her that I'm gay. Which was… difficult. For me to say out loud, for the first time, and for her to hear." He laughs self-deprecatingly. 

I reach further and squeeze his hand in mine. "Would it be weird if I said I'm proud of you?"

"A little. I never even told you. But you knew."

"I knew. Not for sure, and not at first. Given your insistences otherwise. But yes, I did."

His new smile is still shy, but more genuine. 

"So I left. Went to a hotel for a few nights. And now I'm living in an apartment, close to campus. It’s- it’s not ideal. Well, I mean, the location is ideal, actually, but that’s not what I meant, I-”

He’s talking too fast. Needs to calm down. “Hey. I know that’s not what you meant.”

He takes a breath. “I'd like to see more of the kids, that’s the main thing. But these things take time to work out, I guess."

"That’s a big change, Oliver. You have a lot going on in your life right now. Might not be the best time to talk about you and me, really."

"I disagree. We've waited long enough. Now is absolutely the best time to talk about it. Not necessarily to make any big decisions, but to talk. I can’t leave here without knowing that you know exactly what I want."

"Okay. We can talk, but I don't know where to start."

“Elio, I didn’t- I didn’t do it on the expectation that you would do the same, I'm not assuming that you want anything, You don’t owe me something, or anything like that. You don’t have to say yes.”

“Why do this now? Why, after all these years?” This is the one question I’m dying to know the answer to. 

“I was waiting for you. I always thought that you would ask me to leave her and be with you. And then you got married, and I thought that you were happy with her and okay with how things were with us. I thought that it was enough for both of us.

“And then I realised- all of a sudden, when I saw you last winter, that maybe you would never ask me. I realised how stupid, and selfish, I’d been, for so many years. It was never your job to ask, and I had no right to put that responsibility on you. And just because you didn’t ask, that didn’t mean we didn’t deserve a chance.”

“It never occured to me that I _could_ ask such a thing. After all, you…”

“I know that. I see that now. I already told you I know I’ve been an idiot about it all.”

“You don’t really need to ask, though. You know what my answer is.”

He nods, but it’s slow and uncertain. “Is it okay that I need to hear you say it?”

“Yes, it’s okay. If you asked me, if you are asking me, now, then yes, I would. I will.”

I expect him to smile and... I don’t know. Stand up and take me in his arms, or something. 

Instead, Oliver reaches into his pocket. On the table between us, a ring. Despite my best efforts at impassivity, I know my eyes are saucer-wide and my mouth is hanging open in shock. 

Oliver, on the other hand, is trying to hide an affectionate smirk. I can see that it thrills him that he can surprise me.

Speechless, a second time.

“I’ll tell you again that I don't expect anything from you. But you deserve to know what I want. This-" he pushes the ring an inch across the table towards me- "this is all of my cards, laid out here on this table."

"It's a very beautiful card."

He laughs. "I thought so too."

"This is… a lot to take in. I- I can’t say yes to this. I’m already married. You want to make a bigamist of me?”

He laughs. “I know. I don’t expect that. I just wanted you to know I’m serious.”

I hold out my hand, fingers splayed, and watch him pick up the ring. "This isn't me giving you an answer, by the way."

"That's okay. It's not like I asked you a question, anyway. You're not in a position to answer that question now. Besides. It's not so much a question, more a case of… this is what I would like to happen. Some day. Not necessarily even marriage, just… permanence."

He slips the ring onto my finger. I try to hide the shaking in my breath. I try not to think about the other ring, sitting on the desk in the hotel room we'll go back to. The one which fits perfectly, just like this one. Which is strange, now I think about it. “How did you get the right size?”

"Last time we were together, you went to a seminar one morning. You left your wedding ring on the nightstand, so I, um, I borrowed it. Took it to a jeweller and got it sized. I know that probably crosses a line.”

Maybe it does. I don’t care. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“I’ve been thinking about this since the first time I kissed you. Not this, specifically, but… a future.”

We go back to our hotel room, to our bed, _ours,_ if only for the weekend. We make love, and it should be earth shattering, it should be important, a reflection of what's changed between us. 

In reality we’re so happy, so giddy with delight, that we can't stop dissolving into sloppy giggles. It's over too fast and when we're done I collapse onto him and bury my smile in his chest while he holds me, kissing my hair and stroking my back. When I raise my head to look at him we both laugh again, laughing at the impossible possibility newly dangling before us.

So yes, we make love. But the things we make afterwards are far more important. We lie close, two heads on one pillow, and share whispers and kisses. We make joy, and promises, and plans. We're making a future I never before dared dream of.

Oliver rolls onto his back and links his right hand in my left. He holds them up and watches the last rays of the afternoon sunlight shine between our fingers, the ring glinting in the glow.

I have to laugh. "You're so cheesy. This is like something out of a bad romance movie."

"Yeah, but you know you love it."

I feign indignance. "I do not."

"You do so." He slips his hands around me and tickles me until I confess.

I sigh as I slip it off my finger and place it in his hand. “You know I can’t wear this. Not right now. Not while I’m married to someone else.”

“I know. 

"But that doesn't mean I won't. Just… not now."

"So, later?"

I take a deep breath. "Yes. Later."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact- I wrote a lot of this from Oliver's POV before realising it didn't work and starting over.  
> You can find me on tumblr at [natures-cunning-ways](https://natures-cunning-ways.tumblr.com/).  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [natures-cunning-ways](https://natures-cunning-ways.tumblr.com/).


End file.
